Just over a week ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Charles Leadbeater at the conclusion of his “Collaboration by Design” workshop in Sydney.

When I heard that Charles was in town I was excited for 3 reasons.

First, his work on user innovation and collaborative design pre-empted what we’re seeing today all across the Internet.

Secondly, that early work was part of the reason why I decided to create my own user innovation startup, OneEyeDeer.

Thirdly, I was keen to hear Charles speak in person.

I had seen Charles do his TED talk, and others, on the Internet, and he'd always come across as being articulate, knowledgeable and as having a way of presenting often complex ideas in a fashion that was easily understood. That’s not to say he dumbed-down those ideas. To the contrary, his skill as an orator is in his ability to maintain the integrity of the underlying concept while making it more accessible.

To speak with him in person promised to be a real treat, and I wasn’t disappointed.

In our interview, the video of which I understand will be posted here soon, we covered off the basic ideas behind user innovation, why it’s successful as a process and where it might be heading.

It was not long, however, before we touched on the topic of Social Innovation.

It seems to me that if ever there was a natural extension of user innovation, then social innovation would be it.

While user innovation does not necessarily have social benefit as its desired output, it’s clear that when it does the outcomes can be extraordinary.

The same can be said in reverse.

When you add in the inherent nature of the web to reduce information sharing and search costs as well as facilitating the creation of markets, networks and communities (see Umair Haque for more on that) you start to see why social user innovation, which leverages the Internet, has so much potential.

But all that could have been explained through a video, webinar or podcast. So why is it so important that Charles came to Australia to do the workshop he did?

First of all it makes him accessible. That’s key.

If we’re to get everyone from grassroots organisations to the Federal Government understanding the power of social user innovation, then we have to put them in the same room with people like Charles so they can interact as humans do best, in person.

Secondly, because it provides the impetus for people to continue working on their social innovation initiatives when he leaves. This is also of critical importance.

By providing a workshop, rather than just a talk, what ASIX did was give people the tools to continue working even when the buzz of the event dies down. As an example, I now have a bunch of things I’d like to see if we can implement at OneEyeDeer in order to make it even more useful as a social innovation tool.

The fact that Charles was in town isn’t going to change things, per se. It’s clear that change has to be enabled locally and it’s going to rely on a long-term effort rather than a rock star appearance. Having him here, however, will go a long way to getting people to commit to that long-term effort and for that ASIX needs to be congratulated on organising the event.